Chapter 195

146 Part 2

[You do not have to furrow your brow as you are now inside yourself. Your own flesh should not disgust you.]

Ian could hear Fran Page’s voice directly in his head.

“Inside…?”

[You can say that you are now in the deep abyss in your soul. It is the end of the imaginary world where only those who can wield the power of language can reside. If someone else drank what you just swallowed, he or she would have gone crazy on the spot. You would have suffered the same fate had you not gained the power of language.]

This unpleasant space was the end of the imaginary world? Ian could not understand what Fran was saying. The term is a familiar one to magicians. The ultimate goal of mana breathing was to ‘enter’ the imaginary world.

[If you become used to the imaginary world, you can enter it without the potion. But since we do not have time now, we need to borrow the power of alchemy.]

“What connection does the imaginary world have to the power of immortality?”

[I might use this time to ask a question…]

“I want you to tell me directly what you need to tell me.”

[Then there’s no fun. No fun at all.]

Fran teasingly repeated his words and asked his question.

[You turned back thirty years. By returning to your younger self, you enjoyed everything you could in your second life. Then, here’s the question. What happened to the twelve-year-old Ian Page, the boy who should have existed?]

What happened to the Ian Page that had been a ‘twelve-year-old’ and his ‘past self’ that had been waiting for the mana response test holding his mother’s hands when Ian Page had turned back thirty years? Fran’s question was asking the answer to this.

“……”

Ian could not answer easily since he had not wondered even once about this issue. He thought he had just come back in time, but it seemed there were complications that Reseese Radenju had also implied. Didn’t Reseese say that a new dimension opened every time the time was turned back? Reseese had said that the war between them and Fran was because they wanted to prevent the reckless divisions. If there were different dimensions, there had to be more than one Ian Page.

“What’s the answer?”

[He’s sleeping.]

The pink floor bluntly soared up as Fran replied.

[In your mind, at the end of the imaginary world.]

The top of the pink pillar that had risen split in two to show what was placed inside.

[In there.]

Ian saw someone’s head at the top of the pillar. He could not hide his surprise when he saw that it was a boy with light brown hair.

“…Me?”

The boy trapped in the pillar was the twelve-year-old Ian Page. The boy right before receiving the mana response test was sleeping contently.

[Two souls cannot stay in one body, so the soul that was not chosen has to step back and fall into an eternal sleep.]

The twelve-year-old Ian was sleeping soundly, and Ian stared at the young boy in confusion.

[You do not have to take this seriously. The major links of the mainstream are decided by your actions only. The other dimensions are only imitations derived from your powers.]

However, it was not enough to erase the confusion away.

“Wait, then shouldn’t there be one more?”

Ian spoke after a while because a suspicion arose in his mind.

“When I did away with Prince Ragnar, I turned the time back for a bit.”

Ian had turned back time for a few seconds when he had ended Prince Ragnar.

[That was perceptive of you.]

Another pink pillar rose with Fran’s words, and it was thicker and longer than the pillar that rose beforehand.

[This is you a few years back. You might feel strange since I felt the same because I did not know which was the right one. Well, I concluded that it mattered little.]

Fran’s words were accurate because it was different from the twelve-year-old kid’s face. Since it was when Ian was cornering Prince Ragnar, that meant little time had passed.

[All right. Chatting time is over.]

Fran changed the subject to the original one.

[I will speak from the conclusion. The ‘power of immortality’ you desire, and the lizards spoke about does not exist. I just used the ‘excess of souls’ stocked in the imaginary world.]

Ian could not understand at first what Fran was saying, but he soon knew what Fran was implying.

[In your position, those two sleeping now are tools that will revive you twice, or ‘tools that will die in your place.’]

Ian’s alter souls will keep him alive by dying in his place.

[You probably heard from the lizards that I had divided countless dimensions once. I concur that this happened because I did not know the power of time had those repercussions. However, I do not regret it because everything I did was for mankind. Only for this world…!]

Fran’s voice became unstable.

[More souls than I had expected fell into my imaginary world in that process, so I freed them as the ‘extra lives’ that will disintegrate in my place.]

Fran had been teasing and talkative but, at the core, he had always been this sort of person.

[It would be better for them to be sacrificed as foundations for a greater good. They probably wanted this too, since they are me. If I, at a higher plane, sacrificed the current me, I would gladly accept it.]

Endless madness and stubbornness that became an obsession. This was the real side of the ‘monster’ Fran Page.

[Ian, if you want the power of immortality, first bask in the power of time. If you have past mistakes you want to fix, do so to your heart’s content. Since you are now an expert on the power of language, you can do so now. You also have the right to it.]

The fractured dimensions that the dragons worried so much about did not faze Fran Page, who was the cause of the divide. He was only chasing the tail of the value he could see; his ideals had degenerated with only their shell left over.

“Extra souls derived from the power of time.”

However, Ian did not feel worried or suffocated as he heard Fran’s words.

“That is the core of the power of immortality.”

Ian felt lighter since he now felt that he had found the road ahead.

‘Then they are not immortal.’

Countless souls that have been derived from countless returns to the past. What would the power of immortality using these souls be called?

‘If they die ceaselessly.’

If they die tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousand times, or even more.

‘Then, they die.’

Ian’s conclusion was simple, in that the power of immortality did not grant actual immortality. Fran Page, the immortal troops, and the artisans that are staying in Ian’s villa had not escaped death, but only fooled others and themselves into thinking that they had.

‘It might be doable.’

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